


Challenges

by zombiegardener



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hunk is awesome, M/M, hunk appreciation fic, pre-klance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 03:46:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8188403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiegardener/pseuds/zombiegardener
Summary: Keith is frustrated. Hunk is amazing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So i survived the last week and was working on the next 3 parts of another fic last night in an effort to not fall asleep at 6 PM and was hung over for the second time in a 24 hour stretch because this is my life apparently and it's football season and I couldn't get the idea of Keith getting advice from Hunk about Lance out of my head. Because Hunk is awesome. And then I started the rest of the fic this morning and realized there was no end in sight, so here is this.

“Why is he always like this?”

Hunk glanced up from the schematics spread out on the low table in the rec room to watch Keith drop bonelessly onto the couch. The other boy slouched into the cushions and tilted his head back to glare at the ceiling. There was no need to ask who Keith was referring to. Only Lance ever got under his skin like this.

“What did he do now?”

“He just…” Keith gestured uselessly, brought his hands up to cover his face, and released a quiet scream of pure frustration.

Right. Obviously this wasn’t going to be an easy fix. Pushing aside the schematics with one last lingering glance to mourn his lost train of thought, Hunk turned all of his attention to Keith.

“If it helps he isn’t actually trying to drive you crazy.”

Keith’s hands dropped from his face and his expression shifted towards doubt. “No, I’m pretty sure he is.”

Hunk laughed at that and leaned back. “That would require planning and I’d know if that was happening because Lance and subtly aren’t exactly a thing.”

Keith shook his head, but Hunk couldn’t decide whether the gesture was in agreement or denial. He could be surprisingly hard to read sometimes. “Then _why_?”

Hunk wondered if he could get away with a short explanation, but a long look at the near desperation in Keith’s expression suggested otherwise. Besides, they needed to work together if Voltron was going to work and that meant that Lance and Keith needed to get their shit together before one of them actually murdered the other in a tv movie-worthy bout of misplaced passion or Allura did it for them in a fit of anger, because the princess was kind of scary. So he was practically doing his patriotic duty and in no way betraying his best friend’s confidence because seriously? Enough was enough. With his conscious clear, he took a deep breath and tried to decide where to begin.

“When we did that mind meld thing back when we were first here you saw his family, right?” Keith nodded, his expression hovering somewhere between doubtful and confused but at least the painful desperation was dropping with the hope that Hunk might be able to make sense of whatever was going through his head. No pressure there. “He has a huge family. We’re talking mafia movie big. There’s always people and the house is always crazy. You either have to make an effort to be seen in that kind of chaos or you disappear into the background, and if you haven’t noticed Lance can’t stand to be overlooked.”

Keith snorted and dropped his head back onto the couch cushions. “No, I’ve never noticed that about him.” Hunk was impressed. That was pretty spot-on sarcasm from someone who was on the verge of primal screaming two seconds ago.

“Yeah. Well, the other thing about a big family like that is that there’s always someone who’s going to be better than you at almost everything, be it a sibling, cousin, aunt, uncle, great-grandparent, ferret, neighbor-“

“Wait, did you say ferret?”

Hunk grinned. “It’s chaotic, man. It could happen. My point is that Lance decided pretty early on what he wanted to do and absolutely refused to let anything get in the way of that. He didn’t care if someone else could do it better or had more natural talent or ability. He just made up his mind and fought for it.”

“To be a pilot”.

“Yep.”

“Okay, I get that. I think. But what does that have to do with driving me crazy? Why not you or Pidge or Shiro?” One hand came up and made some sort of aborted gesture before it fell back to his side. “Okay, not Shiro. But seriously, you’re close. How did you get him to stop?”

Hunk hummed in thought. “I didn’t have to get him to stop because our relationship was never like that, and Pidge just ignores him when he’s irritating and he backs off because I’m pretty sure Pidge is vindictive enough to destroy someone’s life if provoked. Honestly, I’ve never seen him react to anyone the way he reacts to you, so I don’t have easy words of advice for you there. He’s just always been focused on you, even back at the Garrison. Sometimes he drove me kind of crazy.” 

Keith rubbed viciously at his eyes and groaned. ‘Great, join the club. I still don’t get why me, though.”

 _Because he’s like a little boy on the playground pulling the pigtails of the girl he likes because he’s too far in denial to come up with a better plan?_ Hunk didn’t say, because he was a better friend than that even if he was sure if was 50% true. Instead, he opted for the other 50% of the explanation because maybe sympathy was actually the best option. “You’re a better pilot than he is.”

Keith made a frustrated noise again. Hunk dropped his tone down to soothing to stall the meltdown that he could feel coming. “It’s a challenge thing. It’s part of what drives him. Pidge has laser focus, I like to put things together, Lance thrives on challenges. It’s not that he wants to be better than you…”

He stopped as Keith dropped his hands to stare at him and replayed the words he’d just said. “Okay, he probably totally does, because he’s Lance, but that’s not the point. The point is that you challenge him and push him and he can’t back down from a challenge, especially if it’s aimed towards something he cares about. And you’re just so effortlessly better at this than him that it drives him crazy.”

“But that doesn’t make _sense_! I’m not better than him at everything! He’s a better sniper than I’ll ever be and I’m pretty sure he’s picked up more Altean and probably more of other languages than any of us and his bond with Blue is ridiculous!”

“I know.” Hunk was hoping his tone was still soothing and didn’t sound like he was trying not to laugh, because that wasn’t exactly an off the cuff sort of comment. Those comparisons had required thought. “It goes back to the challenge thing. He tends to ignore things he can do easily because they’re not challenging. It’s not that they’re not important, they just don’t drive him. You could make them a challenge, I guess, try to distract him, but honestly he’d probably lose interest pretty fast.” Hunk sighed at the look of defeat on Keith’s face. “Look, if it helps you’re making him a better pilot faster than a year of lessons at the Garrison managed.”

“No one was shooting at us at the Garrison!”

“Point.”

Keith closed his eyes and Hunk gave him a minute to think. His mind had already started to drift back to the issue with Yellow’s guidance system and a way to direct flows through worm holes when Keith’s soft voice startled him back to the present.

“We just got into a fight about whether pineapple was an acceptable pizza topping. An actual fight. What the hell?”

Hunk didn’t even fight the grin. “Interesting. Which side did you take?”

“Against. Obviously.”

“Uh-huh.” Hunk regarded him speculatively. Keith looked a bit calmer if no less frustrated. Maybe it was time to let the other shoe drop. “And you fought with him about this why?”

“Because pizza, Hunk!” Keith sat up and stared at him with something approaching horror.

“No, whatever. I get the pizza thing. I mean why fight with him? Why not walk away?”

“I…” Keith sighed. “I honestly don’t know. He just… He says things and I can’t let it go.” His voice dropped, almost like he was talking to himself, which maybe he kind of was. “He gets all passionate and alive and I lose all my self-control and then we’re fighting or racing or doing something incredibly stupid. It’s like sometimes I lose track of everything but him and that just makes me so _angry_.”

Angry, right. Again, Hunk didn’t say that out loud because unlike some people he had internal filters. “Like I said, you’re a challenge. Every time he figures out one of your buttons to push he’s all over it because you react.”

“Awesome. So how do I stop being a challenge?”

Hunk gave Keith a knowing look. “Do you want to stop being a challenge?”

“I…” Keith bit his lip but didn’t look away. “Yes! No. I don’t know!” Hunk continued to watch him, and Keith finally wilted under the scrutiny. Hunk felt kind of impressed with himself but also kind of ashamed because Keith rarely reacted that way to anyone but Shiro. This whole situation was just all kinds of messed up. “No.” The last word actually did emerge as a whisper.

“I didn’t think so. The way I see it, part of the problem is that his feelings for you are so tangled that he doesn’t know what to do. He has the rest of us figured out, but you? Challenge. So he’s reacting the way he does with anything that’s a challenge and trying to beat you into submission.” Keith’s face scrunched up and Hunk waved a hand quickly. “Figuratively. We’re not talking precision here, we’re talking using a tornado to tear down a fence. And that sucks, because you two make a really good team. You just need to find some way to pull yourselves together, but that means actually thinking and not just reacting.”

Keith frowned down at his hands. Hunk sighed internally and wondered if it was time to implement Pidge’s Plan B (i.e., just lock them in a closet with weapons and lube and force them to sort it out). He hoped not, but he was running out of things to say that wouldn’t actually be breaking his best friend’s confidence, and he wasn’t going there. “Did any of that help?”

Thankfully, Keith nodded. “I think so? It’s something to think about anyway.”

“Good, man, because I care about you both and I’m tired of seeing you like this.” He reached over and gave Keith’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

A faint blush tinged Keith’s cheeks and he gave an uncomfortable shrug. “Thanks, Hunk.”

“Anytime.” Keith pushed himself up and stretched. Hunk pulled the schematic back towards him and glanced at Keith out of the corner of his eye. “By the way, pineapple is totally awesome on pizza.”

Keith just shook his head sadly and started for the door. “I’m surrounded by traitors to pizza integrity. The universe is screwed.”

Hunk let out a surprised laugh and turned his full attention back to his engineering problem, which unlike the mess between his friends had a nice, easy solution, he was sure, if only he could find it.


End file.
